


Rock and Tempest, Fire and Foe

by idler



Category: Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-21
Updated: 2011-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-24 20:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idler/pseuds/idler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morning, October 21, 1805, off Cape Trafalgar.</p><p>Aboard <i>Temeraire</i>, William Bush and his men can only wait as they inch toward the Combined Fleet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rock and Tempest, Fire and Foe

_October 21, 1805_

The waiting was the worst of it.

The drums had sent them to quarters hours ago, and still they waited. The bustle and excitement at the prospect of immediate battle had faded, leaving in its place a tension so thick and palpable that one might have cut it with the surgeon’s knife.

 _Temeraire_ heaved and rolled sickeningly in the long and oily Atlantic swells, the light airs unable to propel her at more than a snail’s pace toward the Combined Fleet. Earlier on deck Bush had seen for himself the great cloud of sail that awaited them to leeward, his mind’s experienced eye accurately filling in an image of the ships with guns run out and bristling with deadly force: these men, assigned as they were to the middle gun deck, had not. And Bush was glad of it.

Bush studied his men in the half-light, the brightness of the morning seeping only vaguely through the open gun ports. His gun crews were strangely silent, though he had given no order that they should be so. Small groups of men crouched about those few among them who could read and write, each man quietly awaiting his turn to pass a few solemn words. In the stillness Bush fancied that he could even hear the scratching of their pens.

It was not well, considered Bush, that the men should have such time to think. Surely many of them would indeed fall before this day was out—but it did one no good to dwell upon it. Fear could cause even the stoutest heart to falter, and faltering men were not the sort of company one wanted to lead into battle. And this long slow crawl into Hell itself was enough to try even the staunchest courage.

Continual movement beside him intruded upon his thoughts, rousing his ire. The midshipman at his elbow was shifting nervously—the young snotty could not be still, it seemed—and he turned to chide the boy sharply for his restlessness. Officers simply did not fidget, and it was high time—no, _past_ time— the lesson was properly learned. But the face that peered up to his was pinched and small with fear, and Bush felt an unexpected rush of compassion for this mere child who would be expected to do a man’s work this day. He allowed his sternness to ease a trifle. “Yes, Mr. Brickley?”

“What….what are the men doing, sir?” Brickley’s voice shook slightly, despite his obvious attempts to appear unmoved under his senior officer’s careful scrutiny.

“Writing letters,” Bush said quietly. It would do the boy no good to know that most—if not all—might be more properly classified as wills.

Bush abruptly fell silent as one of the writers rose and approached, knuckling his forehead respectfully even as he proffered a sheaf of papers. Bush accepted them with a nod, tucking them carefully inside his jacket, then raised his voice slightly so that it might carry the length of the deck though he seemingly spoke only to the midshipman. “At the Nile, Mr. Brickley, my pockets were so crammed with letters and trinkets that I could scarcely move.”

Bush was gratified to find that Brickley, bright lad that he was, noted the slightly sardonic tone and quickly grasped his intent. “And what did you do with them after, sir?” he asked.

“I gave them all back, Mr. Brickley.” Bush offered the ghost of a half smile. “Though there was a fine watch or two that I might well have kept.”

“Thievin’ bugger,” someone muttered, thinking his identity safely concealed in the gloom.

Brickley bridled, ready to round on the man, not recognizing the rough humour in the voice.

Bush stilled the midshipman with a gesture, and cast a dangerous glare into the shadows. “Perhaps I should count your backbones at the gratings tomorrow, Stubbs? After all,” he said, patting a pocket, “You already gave me _your_ watch.”

With that the tension was broken and the men laughed as one, Bush grinning with them. His aim accomplished, he moved forr’d, with Brickley following closely at his heels like an overlarge puppy.

“Were you really at the Nile, sir?” The midshipman was practically panting in his eagerness. Bush studied Brickley’s guileless grin, incongruous as it was with the stark fear still plainly evident in his eyes. Officer or no, perhaps he was as sorely in need of distraction as any of the men.

“I was, and am here to tell the tale.” Bush smiled. “It was in my early days as a lieutenant, on _Goliath_.”

“And all your men survived, sir?”

It was hardly the question Bush had anticipated. The hope in the boy’s voice was undeniable, but Bush found himself wholly incapable of shameless deceit. An officer—no matter how young—deserved no less than the truth. He sobered, and turned away from the men, dropping his voice to a murmur. “No. _Goliath’s_ losses were heavy. But these men must imagine a tomorrow, else they’re dead already.”

“But...” Brickley frowned. “It makes no sense, sir. You are as likely to die as they, yet they entrust you with their keepsakes.”

Bush studied the young man, always full of questions—questions that he, at that age, had never even thought to consider—and he wondered for perhaps the hundredth time if Hornblower had been such a boy, always bedeviling his betters. This boy forced him, even now, to consider the reasons for things he had always merely accepted as fact. Much as Hornblower had done, come to think of it.

He sighed, and pondered for a moment, remembering what he had learned about these men during his brief tenure on the lower decks. “They may damn my eyes and blast my soul on every watch, but they do not wish to imagine being left alone in the thick of it. They look to me, Mr. Brickley, and they will look to you.” He scowled down at the young man, gratified that the opportunity for sharp rebuke had presented itself after all. “So God’s teeth, boy, stop that infernal shifting about. You look as nervous as a whore in church.”

“Aye aye, sir.” The midshipman appeared suitably chastened, clasped his hands behind his back, and stood blessedly still. He seemed unruffled as a waxwork, and Bush was, at last, content.

And the deck heaved gently, and the sun filtered in, and the light airs carried them onward, into the gates of Hell.


End file.
